Interview Questions: Talking about Keeping and Organizing Company Records

Record management is the planning, controlling, directing, organizing, training, promoting, and other managerial activities which involve the life cycle of information, including its creation, maintenance, and disposal. For any company to have an organized and accurate record management system, be it manual or electronic, they must have a secretary who has exceptional record management skills.

When you are in an interview for a secretarial position, you are expected to know how to manage records. If the interviewer asks, “What record management were you responsible for?” how would you respond? How are you going to prove your worth as a responsible secretary who can do the job of keeping and organizing records?

Here are few tips that can help you in giving an answer:

If you are an experienced secretary, you are likely to have considerable experience in record management, so you should be able to come up with an easy answer. Usually, interviewers ask questions like these to assess if you really know what you’re doing. So, tell your story and indicate your methods of handling this specific task.

Before going to the interview, you can ask yourself, “What kinds of records did I handle?” and “What did I do to keep them accurate and safe?” Answer these questions to yourself, and you’ll be better prepared for this question.

Mention any record management tasks that you were asked to handle before, and explain the methods and strategies that you used to keep and organize these records.

Explain briefly and concisely how you have managed records. Your goal is to make the interviewer understand that you know what you’re doing and that you can do the job well. Focus on your record management skills, and don’t say anything negative or irrelevant. Keep it short and simple.

It would be better if you provide a scenario or an example of your own experience. Just be honest about it. Pick the best experience you’ve had, and tell a short story about it.

Maintain your professionalism when answering this question or any other question. Be specific with the important details. As a secretary, you will be required to keep track of records and organize them, so you’ll need to show your record management abilities and make them stand out. With these tips, you can prove to the interviewer that you’re the right person to keep records for the company.

Alan is the creator of Interview Success Formula, a training program that has helped more than 40,000 job seekers to ace their interviews and land the jobs they deserve. Interviewers love asking curveball questions to weed out job seekers. But the truth is, most of these questions are asking about a few key areas. Learn more about how to outsmart tough interviewers by watching this video.